Khan Tegus was crouching beside me, short of breath. I could see Saren standing behind him, her cheeks pink from running.
'I got him,' she said, proud as a rooster. 'I found him, Dashti. I was brave.'
Tegus scooped my hands into his. The mist of his breath wrapped around my face, and he spoke to me as though we were all alone. 'Ancestors, your hands are cold. First I find you bootless on a battlefield, now with your feet on a chopping block. And with bare hands, no less.'
'Hello,' was all I could manage back.
'Are you hurt?' he asked, and though his voice was gentle toward me, I sensed anger in it. He wasn't angry at me then, but I knew he would be soon.
'Alive still,' I said, 'and with both my feet intact even.'
There's something about being with Tegus that feels like privacy. The way he looks at me or touches me, we can be in a room full of people but I always feel as though we're alone, no one else in the world. I felt that way then, his white breath and mine mingling, his large hands trying to warm my own.
But then Lady Vachir spoke up. Of course she would.
'My lord, that girl is not Lady Saren.'
He helped me to my feet, and I wobbled on one leg, so he put an arm around my waist to hold me steady. The shouting and explaining and accusing had started again, but I didn't hear much of it. My head felt as though it were still pressed to the block, and everyone was talking at once, and I was watching Tegus, the anger in his eyes, the doubt creasing his forehead. All I could think was,
When will he let go of me?
That wondering was bigger than my head.
'Enough!' Tegus shouted. He turned to me. 'Is it true, what she says she read?'
'My name's Dashti,' I said, as simply as I could. I knew it was all about to end and I didn't want to lie anymore. 'I'm not Lady Saren. I'm a mucker maid, no more.' I wouldn't point out the real Saren now, not with Lady Vachir there hoping for someone to chop up.
He asked Lady Vachir for my book. She gripped it. 'Lady Vachir,' he said quietly, 'stealing is also a crime.'
She placed it in his hands, her expression carefully casual. He pressed it back into mine. 'Keep this close to you,' he whispered.
Then, at last, came the moment when his arm fell away from my waist. I shivered as he took a step back, suddenly as frozen inside as out. Perhaps it's irony that I'd met Khasar naked on the battlefield, but I felt colder now.
After he let me go, warriors carried me here, locked me in. I stared at my one candle for hours. I couldn't bear to look away.
This evening Shria brought some supper, and with it my horsehair blanket, some ink, and a brush. She didn't speak to me, but she touched my cheek before she left. I tore a blank page out of this book and thought to write Tegus an explanation. I crossed out the words again and again before I gave up. Every word I write to him sounds false. I can't speak the whole truth--That I wasn't only acting out of duty for my lady, how it was my own shirt I gave him.
How parts of me wanted to be his lady, just for a moment even.
Stop it, Dashti. None of that matters now. My whole, heavy world hangs by a thin rope. I remember a time when I comprehended Saren's plea to die, but not now. Now I want to live. Ancestors, please, I want to keep on living.
It's cold down here.
Day 170
Khan Tegus came this morning. He asked me again if it was all true.
'Yes,' I said.
He groaned and paced. I didn't explain. I guess I always knew it would come to this, and trying to change it now seemed like trying to stop the wind from blowing across the steppes. Besides, the excuse 'my lady ordered me to'
sounded so feeble in my head. She ordered me, but I chose to obey.
'Lady Vachir is claiming blood rights,' he said. 'Protection of binding betrothals is as old as cities, since the days men would get brides by kidnapping. The law is severe on that point, and my chiefs say she's within the law, and... Dashti, I don't know what to do.'
'Have you spoken with Lady Saren?'
He looked sharply at me. 'Is she Lady Saren? She's been claiming such, and I told her to be quiet about it and stay hidden in the kitchens. No need to give Vachir another target.'
'If it comes to dying'--I sat on my hands so he couldn't see them shake --'if it comes to that, don't be anxious for me. I have a mama in the Ancestors' Realm. She'll sing me in. I'll be all right.'
I didn't want to say that. I wanted to throw myself on my knees and beg to keep breathing, but I can't have him breaking his heart for worrying about me. Even so, my words didn't seem to relieve him any. He put his face in his hands and breathed slowly for a long while. I think he might've cried, if he'd let himself. He might've cried for me.
What a powerful thought.
'You're our champion.' He let his hands drop. 'You went out alone, you took down Khasar. But now Lady Vachir has made certain there's not a soul in this city who doesn't also know that you lied, you claimed to be
